There are benefits and drawbacks to both collaboration and individual work. Trenz sits at the intersection of both work styles, thus aiming to negate the downsides of both and harness their benefits based on real-time user needs. Holistically, the corporate workplace furniture industry is stagnant, despite several trends that pave the way for future innovation. Even though studies are consistently released on the benefits of natural light, flexibility, and activity in the workplace, the furniture industry has not yet responded with a solution that successfully solves all three while keeping the user in mind. As such, Trenz is a product-service system with the potential to create a new segment in the market because of its user-centric design, the support of individual/group work dynamics, and its feature set that can accommodate a diverse group of users.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 is a civil rights law that protects the rights of people with disabilities. Within InnovationSpace, my team and I investigated the problems of ADA regulations within hotels. Despite how the ADA is meant to prevent discrimination from occurring, many disabled people still face problems today in hotels from inconveniences to ADA regulation violations. As said in the mission statement of the hotel project in InnovationSpace, going where you want, when you want and with whom you want, is a basic human right that everyone deserves to enjoy, so it is essential that people with disabilities are properly accommodated. Being intrigued of the expectations and reality of ADA compliance found in hotels, I decided to further investigate this gap.
As the COVID-19 pandemic took the world by storm, the hotel industry struggled to remain afloat. Many resorted to innovative solutions to maintain their business and jobs. As the hotel industry grappled with ideas that could keep their business afloat, an idea called EasyHub was born. EasyHub is a hypothetical mobile device application that bridges the user and a paired SMART device or an entire ecosystem of SMART devices. While the design for EasyHub was initially intended to help hotels increase their accessibility, it soon became apparent that EasyHub could potentially be a product of much greater market value. As the idea of EasyHub became more developed, the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to subdue, and the hotel industry was on the mend. Assuming that EasyHub is found useful, it could theoretically boost demand to businesses that use them. Many hotels already utilize SMART devices to some degree making them prime targets for EasyHub. This research paper seeks to determine if EasyHub can aid hotels’ recovery from the pandemic-induced recession by increasing revenue. Surveys were conducted among hoteliers and a general audience to determine the impact of EasyHub on guests’ decisions to stay at a hotel. The results indicate that EasyHub would not be a significant factor in guests’ decision-making of hotels; however, this may be due to a lack of clarity about the product, as many respondents expressed a desire for more information. Further development and testing of EasyHub is necessary before a market analysis and its full potential can be assessed.
“InnovationSpace is an entrepreneurial joint venture among the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, W.P. Carey School of Business and the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University. The goal […] is to develop products that create market value while serving real societal needs and minimizing impacts on the environment. Put simply, we seek to create products that are progressive, possible and profitable. At the same time, they must have a meaningful impact on the daily lives of ordinary people. InnovationSpace utilizes two fundamental strategies for creating sustainable innovation: a model of new product development known as Integrated Innovation and the emerging field of biomimicry.” — InnovationSpace program syllabus
The focus of the project outlined by Cisco is “to understand the needs of people who face physical, cognitive or sensory disabilities, and develop new products and services for them utilizing the potential of the new technologies called the Internet of Things.” In other words, I am challenged to leverage the Internet of Things technologies to develop a device that benefits individuals with disabilities.
The final product is an automated airport cart — Chariot. Based on stakeholders’ needs interviews, we find that visually impaired people experience difficulties navigating the airport when they need to travel. Many airports attempt to solve this problem by offering wheelchair. However, visually impaired people feel that they are treated unfairly and become dependent on the wheelchairs. Chariot strives to solve this problem by applying the same concept in autonomous vehicle to guide the users through the airport. The users receive their itinerary email that will link to the Chariot app on their phones. When they arrive at the airport, the users simply connect their phones with Chariot and information such as gate number and departure time will be updated in the cart so that Chariot can guide the users to the desired destination. Ultimately, Chariot aims to give visually impaired people more control over their lives.
undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering. The first of the two team projects was an aerospace capstone: Design of
Autonomous Aircraft Systems. The second being a capstone project based out of Arizona State’s design school:
Innovation Space. The purpose of this dual enrollment was to compare and contrast the two product development projects,
in hopes to recommend a course of action to engineers younger than myself who are presented the option of multiple
capstones. This report will elaborate on three areas of engineering design and how they were realized in these projects.
These 3 topics are product development and its effect on design to manufacture, design feature creep, and technical vs
non-technical design. After considering the pros and cons of both capstone projects and their relation to the three main
topics of this report, it was decided that individuals who are motivated to become the best engineers they can be upon
graduating from an undergraduate program, they should find the time to take both capstone courses. Both Design of
Autonomous Aircraft Systems and Innovation Space present opportunities to create new ways of engineering thinking, all
of which will be necessary for an engineer to succeed in his/her first years in industry.
The attached files show the business write-up from phases 5, 6, and 7 from the project followed by a personal reflection.